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paintballgirl's Blog (24 followers)

Mar15
Why I Don't Like This Year's GTASCPermalink
GTASC (The Great True Achievement Score Challenge) for those unfamiliar with it, is a contest graciously hosted by planting42 every year. It's gained popularity since it started being hosted on the True Achievements site last year instead of an outside site. The contest works as follows: At midnight GMT on Sunday (about 7 or 8PM EST on Saturday) the contest period is started. Your TA score for the achievements that you and your team unlock during that week are tracked and you're placed on a leaderboard to see where you stand against other competing teams. At the end of the period, a certain number of teams with the lowest score are eliminated from the competition. After the period resets, you go back to zero and do it again. Well, kind of.

The beauty of this competition is that it tracks TA score, which fluctuates, and not GamerScore, which is static. If you plow through a brand new release with inflated TA this week, you may find yourself with negative TA next week and you'll have to dig yourself out of a hole. That often means being patient when it comes to new releases or at least having a plan in place to make up that lost ground when the TA stabilizes. Because of this, there is a certain element of strategy and planning to this contest. It also means that unless you have a large backlog or the resources to acquire many games, you don't want to put up a huge score every week and exhaust your game supply. Granted, GamerScore isn't at a shortage with all the ID@Xbox games popping up each week, but some gamers are on a tight budget and can't afford to pick up a few games a month. It's for these reasons that I look forward to the GTASC every year. This year is a disappointing one so far because of certain rules and changes. First, I'll give my opinion on some of the more positive changes.

This year went to 3 members per team instead of 4. I actually thought that was a good idea. With 4 people on a team, it leaves room for one member to be dead weight and the other 3 team members to drag them along. It's really annoying to have to cover someone and have to make up for their shortcomings. It basically just draws out the time before elimination inevitably hits. With only 3 members, it's much harder to cover for dead weight, so it encourages team members to work together more. Along with that change came a new addition to this year's contest: an individual contest. This allowed those who didn't have/didn't want a team to still compete. Maybe some people couldn't commit the time necessary to be a reliable team member, so they wanted to go solo. Kudos to them. I think the individual contest was a brilliant idea. That brilliant idea made random team generation one of the poorer choices for this year's competition.

Last year, as with the previous year, you had to build your team. If you couldn't scrounge up enough people to fill a team, sorry fellas, you were out of luck. This year, you could just sign up all willy nilly and use the magic of a random generator to find yourself some teammates. This meant that people had to exert no effort at all to get on a team. This led to people who didn't really care or who don't really play much signing up for this competition. I saw teams drop out in the first week because one member of the team didn't play a single thing all week. That's disappointing. Along those lines, you also needed a "HEFTY" 20,000 GamerScore to sign up for the competition, meaning you didn't have to be playing Xbox for long. On November 22 of this year, Xbox 360 and the achievements that came with the introduction of it will be 10 years old. Xbox One and the low hanging fruit it provides has been around for over a year. Realistically, you can get 20k GS in a month, if you hit those easy games hard. You can hit it in a year if you play normally and throw in a few easy games. Even the achievement hunters that have a busy life, a job or two, outside hobbies, families, or all of the above usually hit about 35k GS a year. Why was the GS minimum so low this year? Because it was important to pander to the lowest common denominator.

The release of the TA app caused a huge influx of new members before the GTASC went live. Because we wanted everyone to feel included, there was a low minimum requirement set so that everyone could play. To me, that's like the nonsense that they do with sports teams for children now. Everybody who plays gets a trophy, because we can't have anyone left out. Why teach them that you can't always win and to learn to not be a poor loser? Nah, let's start to foster that sense of entitlement instead. roll The same thing happened with GTASC. Of course it's awesome to have new people join TA. The more people the better! However, why penalize those that have been around for a while just to make the n00bs feel special? I will mention that last year's minimum score requirement was 10K GS, but you also had to have your TA account active for a minimum of 6 months and you had to find your own team. 50K GS isn't a high GS, but it would certainly have eliminated a lot of the super casual players that are bogging this contest down and making some randomly generated teams struggle. I'm not just talking out of my posterior side here; let me throw some nerdiness at you to prove my point. I'm pulling this info from planting42's Blog and GTASC 15 Team, if you're wondering. Since last year's teams had 4 members instead of 3, the total team scores will be naturally higher than this year, so I will break them down into a score per person to level the playing field.

In the first period of GTASC 2014, the team with the lowest score that was above the elimination line, thus making it to the next period, had 3,514TA, which averages out to 878.5TA per person. I should note here that he first few weeks of GTASC are normally pretty high scoring, as people come out of the gates with something to prove. This year, GTASC 2015, the lowest scoring team to continue on had 1,295TA, or 431.66TA per person. That's a 446.84TA difference per person. Let's hop to period 4.

In 2014, the number to continue on was 3,641TA, or 910.25TA per person. In 2015, it was 1,354TA, or 451.33TA per person. A difference of 458.92TA. As I have been typing, period 8 of this year has just concluded. In 2014, we saw the lowest team march forward with 4,343TA, or 1,085.75 TA per person. In 2015, 1,297TA, or 432.33TA per person, was the abhorrently low bar set for the period. That's a difference of 653.42 per person between the two years. For a contest with "challenge" in the name, it sure seems to be lacking.

Personally, I use the GTASC to keep me motivated and to make sure I am constantly working toward new Gamer Goals. I love the challenge it usually presents and the feeling of making it another week normally brings a sense of accomplishment. I'm missing that feeling this year. Honestly, I think that the random team generation, especially paired with the low GS requirement, was the downfall of this year's competition. When you look at the teams that get eliminated each week, it's mostly randomly generated teams. (You can tell which teams were randomly generated by the team name. Instead of having a real name, they have a name like "Team XYZ," where XYZ will be the Gamertag of the randomly assigned team leader.) To me, that shows a flaw in the system. If teams are going to be randomly generated, the minimum GamerScore requirement needs to be bumped up. If it's going to be be a low score requirement like 20K, random generation needs to stop. Since the individual contest exists, players still have a viable option to compete at their own pace without having a direct impact on other people.

With the annoying Xbox Live issues, lackluster showing of the first part of the GTASC, and picking up a second job that has my total working hours at a bare minimum of 50 on a light week and 65 on the heavy side, I haven't been playing much because I really haven't had to. I pop my one cheevo a day and that's about it. I'm rather calculating and strategic when it comes to GTASC, so I don't use points when it's not necessary. We have one team member who can basically carry us through each week without anyone else playing at all because the scores are so low. I'm really hoping the XBL issues get fixed and the GTASC teams start to pick up the pace soon so that my achievement itch can start being scratched again soon.

Oh, and as an off topic random suggestion for future contests, I think it would be awesome if there was an option for teams to donate money as an entry fee, of sorts. Maybe $1 per team member or something like that to go toward a prize pool. That way, some awesome prizes of higher value could be had or there could be prizes for random winners selected from those who complete bonus objectives. Only teams who donate would be eligible for those particular prizes, so the donation wouldn't be required for those who didn't wish to.

That's just my whole two cents on the matter. Before I go, let me reiterate the fact that I love the concept of GTASC and truly appreciate the labor of love that is to run and host the contest. If you haven't participated in it before, check out the details of it and think about participating in it next year. (Preferably the individual contest if you only pick up the controller every now and then. laugh)

If you've made it this far through this long spiel, you're a trooper. I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog. Let me know your opinion on the matter in the comments below.

Until next time, stay frosty and game on! wave
Posted by paintballgirl on 15 March 15 at 01:01

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Watty8883 I dont like it because its bloody boring no twists and turns, no drama just coasting along putting up score,
Posted by Watty8883 on 15 Mar 15 at 01:04
Xpovos There's some drama, but not as much as there will be later. The bigger change that's causing this issue is that the eliminations are fixed per week. 12/13 teams and 50 individuals. That's just too low a percentage early on to make it any kind of pressure for most of the achieve-aholics on this site. That problem gets exacerbated by having so many new players and less enthusiastic players in the contest, but the root is that. Some math for you.

Period 1 of 2014, 8 teams of 199 were eliminated. That's the bottom 4%, basically.
Period 1 of 2015, 12 of 639 were eliminated. That's the bottom 2%.

You can see how much that actually affected things when period 3 got extended. Now in period 3 we eliminated 25 of 614 teams (4%) and the added pressure forced out a lot of bonuses, particularly on the individual side, and pushed the scoring cutoff to well past double what we had on any other week.
Posted by Xpovos on 15 Mar 15 at 01:43
paintballgirl That's a valid point, as well. I didn't refresh myself on all the rules, but I believe this year is going to be the same number of teams eliminated each week for the entire competition, as opposed to last year, where the eliminations only stayed at 8 until it was mathematically feasible to resume the normal double eliminations. Good observation.
Posted by paintballgirl on 15 Mar 15 at 01:54
Fire Hawk D A lot of this just seemed like nitpicking. Who cares if there's a lower barrier of entry? 20,000 is still high outside of the achievement-hunting community. And, just because there's a lot point of entry doesn't mean the contest is any different.

I don't know. I was hoping for any points with some merit to be brought up when I saw the title, but nah.
Posted by Fire Hawk D on 15 Mar 15 at 04:44
paintballgirl Everything I mentioned explained how I felt it affected the contest. For example, I said that the lower barrier of entry is mostly an issue when paired with random team generation. As the title suggests, it's also my personal opinion. Clearly, those points were lost on you.
Posted by paintballgirl on 15 Mar 15 at 05:05
Kez001 As my team name may suggest, I'm not actively trying to avoid elimination this year, so my presence kind of contributes to the problems mentioned here. After finishing 7th last year, we were burnt out and joined this year with no plans to even look at the leaderboards or worry about scrambling to avoid elimination. I do agree, though that the cutoffs have been ridiculously low so far this year and I can't help laughing when I see all the weekly recap and 'strategy' blogs people have been posting. At this stage it's simply a matter of playing SOMETHING each week and waiting for the competition to actually start...sometime in a couple of months.
Posted by Kez001 on 15 Mar 15 at 06:40
JJBDude48 I agree with your points and have felt sad that it has been so easy to survive so far, it has never been so easy like this come March in previous years. I also think 20k is low, I have plenty of friends I know with more Gamerscore that that who have only ever played games for fun and never bothered with achievements, instead popping them unexpectedly for finishing campaigns and stuff.
Posted by JJBDude48 on 15 Mar 15 at 09:09
Poopdog M60Riot You mentioned the fact that there's essentially no sense of urgency and I totally get that, but then say you're relieved that you have a backpack teammate? I guess make the best of it huh.
Anyway I agree with Kez the competition will really start in a few months.
Posted by Poopdog M60Riot on 15 Mar 15 at 09:28
paintballgirl @Kez - there are absolutely teams that join every year that aren't out to win it and there's no problem with that. Most teams with dedicated achievement hunters still make it to April or May without any effort. It's what I've named the "super casual" gamers who are bogging things down this time around. They're probably not achievement hunters and/or players who play something once or twice a week, at most. I think we've managed to eliminate a good chunk of the people who don't play at all for while. Once the teams can no longer carry the dead weight of those who consistently don't play, things will start to pick up a bit and the next group of eliminations will be those who play very infrequently.

@JJB - glad that you can see where I'm coming from on this. Things usually start to require an effort around June if you're a steady achievement hunter, but I'm wondering how long it's going to take this year.

@Poopdog - I have a team member with a record gamerscore who puts up about 1,500TA on a slow week. There's no slowing down her gaming because she has to continuously play to stay on top. Since my other team member and I are both strategists, we think it's a waste to put up points when we don't have to and have adjusted fire accordingly. So he plays games that are slow burns and have a long time between achievements, while I just pop my achievement per day to keep my streak alive or focus on achievements related to a contest I'm in related to Windows Phone and Windows 8 games or other contests I join. Usually, the competition would have picked up enough by now to start requiring some more effort on our parts, but it hasn't. I'm looking forward to when it does so that I can pop some more achievements without the feeling that I'm throwing points away that can be used later.
Posted by paintballgirl on 15 Mar 15 at 12:10
Mephisto4thewin Easy to survive eliminations now. But will be a nightmare towards the end of the competition. When we only have teams that are properly competing left there still will be 12 eliminated. Those final hour scrambles will be ridiculous.
Posted by Mephisto4thewin on 15 Mar 15 at 14:10
paintballgirl Oh yes! Around October is when you want to start banging your head against the wall. The Hannah Montanas and Avatars of the world start coming out to play. By the middle/end of November, it's pure madness! Even when my team has been eliminated, it's still fun to keep an eye on the leaderboards, especially in the last hour of the period.
Posted by paintballgirl on 15 Mar 15 at 15:11
Kez001 Didn't even pay enough attention this year to realize that the eliminations were a static number and somehow didn't pick it up in what you were saying in the blog...Mephisto's comment, however, is scary. Surviving those eliminations toward the end with only 2 teams going out was bad enough...
Posted by Kez001 on 15 Mar 15 at 19:54
n1ckKz I enjoy the GTASC but with the amount of easy 1k's on the Xbox One it isn't hard to score points. On the other hand some ratios are over inflated on certain games such as Neverwinter and later on in the year they'll really kill off some players due to drops in ratio.

I did like the teams of 4 better last year, 3 people in a team seemed like a good idea at first but it's a bit boring.

Good read.
Posted by n1ckKz on 20 Apr 15 at 01:16
paintballgirl Indeed, the points are endless. That's why I was blown away by the fact that the cutoff scores are so low.

I am currently astounded by how that title update in Project Spark is absolutely wrecking face. People have some rather large holes to dig out of this week. I wonder if some teams can overcome the challenge.
Posted by paintballgirl on 20 Apr 15 at 01:24
n1ckKz laugh I noticed that too. Same with Mortal Kombat X
Posted by n1ckKz on 20 Apr 15 at 01:33
JadedMeanKat So I just read this blog & I have to completely agree with everything you said. Prime example, we are going into July right now & there are still over 300 teams in this competition. I'm wondering if they did the math at all on how many teams should be eliminated. By now I think we were scoring a minimum of 4-6k in TA just to avoid being eliminated, the period as of right now is 309TA being the final team getting eliminated. 309TA!!!!!????!!!!! That's laughable. Right now everyone should be pushing to stay above elimination just long enough to wait until they drop how many are being eliminated. I can get 309TA while sleeping & blind. (ok maybe that is a little over exaggerated but I think I get the point across.) My main question is, is this even going to be finished this year? Seems to me the only challenging week will be the very last one as a competition between 12-16 teams. Also I've looked at some of the bonuses this years & they kinda suck. Not a hard suck, just a "why would I do that" suck.

My biggest problem with GTASC in a whole, not just this year, is that is lasts WAAAAAAAYYYYYY tooo looong. By the time September came along last year, I wanted to be out just so I didn't have to do this boring ass competition anymore. To last to November just burnt me out & made me dislike gaming as much. Would be alot better & more challenging competition is they shortened it. I would say max 3-6 months. You can see who the real score whores are then.

The random team generator should've never existed. If you can't find a team this year, don't do it this year, make some friends you want to compete with & try to join next year or just leave the individual comp open for those who don't have teams & let them show their worth for next year.

I have said my peace. That is all. laugh
Posted by JadedMeanKat on 24 Jun 15 at 16:17
o SeduLOUs o Nice blog post.

I always thought it was strange that it was so 'easy for 5 months, and then when it started, it raced into chaos mode almost immediately. Wouldn't it make more sense to even it all out, so you have to work all year? Instead of eliminating a number, eliminate a percentage each week. That way the chaff will fall off much faster early on, and the number will start to ease off again to avoid the mad summer dash.
Posted by o SeduLOUs o on 30 Jun 15 at 08:03
paintballgirl It seems that in the years where the competition was more fierce, they eliminated a lot of people off the bat and then slowed down to double elimination. This year has a much more casual gamer base and they've chosen the slow and steady method. I think that if they had just set a static number of teams to be eliminated for the duration of the competition last year, it would have been able to build up momentum instead of being easy and then ramping up. This year would have gone better with the mass elimination in the beginning and then the slowdown.

As Murd3rs mentioned, lots of things seemed to go wrong this year. Everything that was implemented was a good idea on its own, but it got all mucked up when everything got put together. Random generator? Helpful to some. Low entry barrier and TA tenure? Opens doors for more people. Slow eliminations? Makes the competition fierce... when there IS competition. All three of those things together make a fine dish called disaster.

Hopefully they'll re-evaluate things next year and treat the individual competition and team ones separately. Make the individual side with the relaxed rules so everyone can feel included and make the team competition the intense experience most of us are signing up for.
Posted by paintballgirl on 30 Jun 15 at 12:26
adiash73 Good blog.

It's good to see it's generated lots of comments long after the initial posting, I always think the comments add extra elements to blogs that we as writers don't always see when we are constructing them.

For me, this is my first year in the GTASC so I haven't got the experience of previous years to judge against.

The Team and Individual contest is good.
I do think random teams for those wishing to do a team comp is a bit odd, I can understand it if you are new to TA and don't have many TA friends, perfect for the recent huge causal gamer influx, and who knows maybe some people did end up in random teams and make some friends along the way, maybe also if you're just in it for fun and/or don't really care.
I do know so big scorers on my feed that plumped for the random team option, but until now have never thought to quiz them on why?

In terms of the scoring and eliminations, the fact I could coast for months with barely scoring and just relying on TA inflation has been a bit of a joke, for months people were getting through with 0 achievement pops, there has to be something a bit wrong with that in my mind. (Xpovos produces a GTASC analysis blog and was tracking 0 achievement poppers)

As I write this, I can see it's starting to hot up a little now, this weeks team contest cut off will be over 3k TA, the highest yet, but that's still peanuts really, just over 1k per player, even with 2 idles, 1 person could knock that out with ease.

The individual contest is running at a lower score, but again creeping up slowly, so all in it has been a very slow burn competition on both fronts, but will no doubt light up as we close in on the finish line and people are pushed to stay in, if that's what they want.

Maybe an idea for next year could be to do the same as this year to accommodate the masses, but add in auto elimination if you don't pop at least 1 achievement, random double elim weeks. In addition they could run a "sprint" competition, over a shorter time frame with a benchmark score that needs to be hit, which goes up each week, a bit like the leapfrog, but based on score, I don't know just thinking on the fly really.

Anyway I can see you put a lot of effort into the blog originally and I'm sure like many others, enjoyed reading it
Posted by adiash73 on 22 Aug 15 at 23:37
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